Alexandra Samuelhttp://www.alexandrasamuel.com
Technology writer, researcher and speakerWed, 31 Oct 2018 21:52:32 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.811302499http://www.alexandrasamuel.comhttp://img.skitch.com/20100530-jxaa7wf5h95sxrn5qswfh69wfs.jpg@awsamuelThis is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.11 essential foods for the ketogenic diethttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/NSuZjoYGiBc/11-essential-foods-for-the-ketogenic-diet
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/self/11-essential-foods-for-the-ketogenic-diet#respondFri, 25 May 2018 05:18:01 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=140300At the beginning of March I decided to get serious about losing the 40-ish pounds I’ve gained in the past three years, and after conferring with my posse, I landed on the ketogenic diet. Initially developed as a treatment for epilepsy, the keto diet lowers carb intake to the point where your body burns fat instead of carbohydrates as its fundamental energy source. Because it involves eating a lot of high-fat, satiating foods like avocados, bacon and cheese, keto makes it relatively easy to reduce caloric intake without feeling hungry, which is why it’s become a popular way to lose weight.

To make sense of my food logs and my recommendations below, there are a few things you need to know about my approach to keto:

I calculated my macros (the balance of carbs/protein/fat in my diet) and my total caloric allowance with the calculator on Ruled.me

I’ve stuck to a limit of 20g of net carbs a day: that means total carbs minus fiber. While I don’t worry too much about hitting 21 or 21.5 carbs, I’ve had very few days where I’ve gone significantly over my limit. In the long run I hope to up my daily carbs but for now I’m sticking to the 20-carb cap, since that guarantees I stay in ketosis (aka fat-burning mode) and helps my body adjust to this new way of functioning. In another month or so I’ll start experimenting with adding some more carbs to my diet in the form of additional fruit and veggies.

I set myself a significant calorie deficit goal — 25% — which means I typically eat between 1250 and 1350 calories a day. But thanks to all the fat I am eating I am rarely hungry and never feel deprived. (And no, I’m not some bird-like eater: before keto I was eating tons of pizza, popcorn and Ben & Jerry’s, often on the same evening. No mystery where those 40 pounds came from!)

I increased my calories and protein for a little while in early April, when our whole family got the flu and I was having trouble getting well again. Once I bumped up my protein (on a doctor’s advice) I started feeling better quite quickly.

Exercise has not been a big part of my weight loss regime, but I have made an effort to be more active because my daily life of working from home is extremely sedentary. I now try to fit in an hour-long walk three or four times a week. But that’s the extent of my exercise.

I am a night owl and an evening snacker, so I try to save calories for the evening — usually by making either breakfast or lunch a very light meal.

Yes, I am supplementing: I take magnesium, vitamin D, omega 3s and probiotics every day, and try to remember to swallow a teaspoon of salt here and there.

I will not pretend that the keto diet is easy: for the first month I was on keto, figuring out what to eat and how to cook it felt like a full-time job. But keto got a lot easier once I figured out my go-to snacks, meals and treats. Here’s what you can reliably find in my kitchen:

Cacao nibs. These crunchy little nibs have become my go-to snack when I want a little something. They taste chocolatey but are much crunchier and lower calorie. One bag lasts me ages, so I only just tried a new kind — these nibs from Prana, which are SO much better than the previous brand I had. (The pieces are larger and have a nicer texture.) It’s worth trying a few brands to find yours.

Epic’s chicken sriracha bars. These chicken bars have replaced Kind bars as the snack I keep in my backpack in case I get hungry out in the world and can’t find a keto-friendly lunch or snack. Would I eat them if I were not on keto? No, I would not. But they are tasty enough, and at 100 calories. 15 grams of protein and 1 gram of carbs, they are a very efficient almost-meal.

Montezuma 100% Absolute Black Dark Chocolate with Cocoa Nibs. I buy these unsweetened chocolate bars at Trader Joe’s, where at $2.99 they are both much cheaper and much tastier than the 100% chocolate bars I’ve found at fancy chocolate stores and Whole Foods. A little bite (4 grams) satisfies me — but what really makes it feel like a treat is if I dip that square of chocolate in a little peanut butter.

Trader Giotto’s Oven-Baked Cheese Bites. Another Trader Joe’s staple, these crunchy all-cheese snacks are high in fat and calories but low in carbs, so they are a delicious snack on days when I haven’t yet eaten a ton of calories.

Bacon and prosciutto. Don’t tell the rabbi, but I am eating a crazy amount of pork in this new life. Once or twice a week, I cook up either a big load of bacon (in the microwave) or a bunch of prosciutto (in the toaster oven). Then I stick the delicious crispy porky goodness in a ziploc bag in the fridge, where it’s available to crumble on salads or scrambled eggs.

Roasted vegetables. Once or twice a week I roast a big whack of vegetables in the oven and then put each type of vegetable in its own container in the fridge. That makes it easy for me to whip up a meal out of some meat and whatever veggies I have going: usually I’ve got a container of broccoli (unless my kid eats it all), a container of roasted fennel (amazing as a condiment or salad enhancement) and maybe some green beans or asparagus. (Keto is so low carb that I’ve occasionally surpassed my carb limits by eating too much cauliflower or broccoli, so it pays to know which veggies are lowest in carbs, and to measure your veggie intake.) To roast the veggies I just drizzle with some olive oil, salt and pepper — or in the case of the broccoli, Montreal steak spice or Tajin seasoning.

Spinach and arugula. We always have a big, pre-washed box of each of these in our fridge. I throw about two cups of one or the other into my morning eggs every day, or use them as the base for a salad, or wilt a little arugula as the base of whatever I’m having for dinner.

Instant Pot boiled or poached eggs. Dinner got a lot easier onceI learned how to use our Instant Pot to poach eggs, or even easier, to boil eggs, If I haven’t got a better plan, I make a quick dinner by wilting some arugula in a wok (I like it better when it’s slightly cooked) and then topping it with a couple of soft-boiled (and peeled!) eggs, a little chunk of gooey burrata cheese, some crispy prosciutto, a few slices of roasted fennel, some black olives and whatever other goodies spring to hand. Delicious, quick and satisfying.

Trader Joe’s Gochujang almonds. In my first month of keto I got completely addicted to macademia nuts: every time I passed through the kitchen I’d eat two or three of those delicious babies. Then I finally realized that a single macademia nut has 20 calories and 2 grams of fat, so I moved the macademia nuts off the convenient shelf and into a big jar that I have to dig for. Now my go-to are these delicious low-carb flavored almonds from Trader Joe’s almonds, which I package up into 100-calorie bags so that I can keep a dose in my purse.

Whipped cream. Thanks to keto, I now have a whipped cream jar. Every two or three nights I whip some unsweetened cream. My bedtime snack is a half-cup of raspberries (if I’ve had a low-carb day, there might even be room for some blueberries, too) topped with a half-cup of whipped cream (or a quarter cup, if I’m close to my calorie limit) with a sprinkling of toasted slivered almonds for texture. No, it is not the same as the two scoops of B&J New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream that I formerly consumed at that hour. But honestly, it may be even more satisfying.

McDonalds salt packets. Whenever I take the kids to McDonalds, I take a few of their little salt packets. I keep these in my purse so that if I’m feeling lousy (in a keto flu-y kinda way) I can knock back a salt pack and a drink of water. Ten minutes later, I feel right as rain.

Keto is not for everybody. It can actually be dangerous for some people, and many folks — myself included — feel sick when their body is first transitioning from burning carbs to burning fat. But if you’re intrigued, I hope these foods (and my food log) can help make it easier for you to give it a try.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/self/11-essential-foods-for-the-ketogenic-diet/feed0140300http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/self/11-essential-foods-for-the-ketogenic-dietCambridge Analytica shows what’s wrong with data-driven marketinghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/Hv6C6TJ6-Rw/cambridge-analytica-shows-whats-wrong-with-data-driven-marketing
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/data/cambridge-analytica-shows-whats-wrong-with-data-driven-marketing#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 23:36:03 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=160381Today in The Globe and Mail, I share the inside scoop on what it was like to work with social media data in the heyday of Cambridge Analytica:

When we were first heading down that path, vendor after vendor tried to woo me with tools that would give us access to the kind of data Cambridge Analytica sold to the Trump campaign. Facebook was packed with communities, quizzes and apps that existed entirely to get access to users’ friends’ data, and many vendors were selling that data.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/data/cambridge-analytica-shows-whats-wrong-with-data-driven-marketing/feed0160381http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/data/cambridge-analytica-shows-whats-wrong-with-data-driven-marketing8 tech essentials for your next business triphttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/auW_lmbFR8M/8-tech-essentials-for-your-next-business-trip
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/8-tech-essentials-for-your-next-business-trip#respondTue, 13 Mar 2018 02:52:22 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=128910I have two stories in today’s Wall Street Journal: Tips for Keeping Your Tech Running Smoothly On the Road and It’s Time to Get Rid of the To-Do List.

My story about my favorite tech travel tools has led to a few inquiries about which specific products I use myself. So here’s the list:

iClever Charger

Portable Charger: I thought I was being really smart when I bought the sleek black iClever charger for our road trips…but then I accidentally ordered two, which led to us discovering that we basically need one of these in every room of our house. So now we keep our iClever chargers at home, and I use this even more compact version when I’m on the road.

UPDATE: A WSJ reader who is also an electrical engineer just emailed me to point out that our new compact charger might not be UL approved (UL is a safety rating). Sure enough, after inspecting my charger, there’s no UL stamp anywhere, so I’ll be returning it. I guess this is what writers mean when they say, “writing saved my life!”

And now I see the iClever charger isn’t UL-certified either. So I’m going to do some digging and decide whether this something that warrants replacing every power strip in our house.

2. Battery: I have had many backup batteries in my day, But I’ve been very happy with this eeco charger because it is very lightweight and has ports for both USB-C and USB-A.

3. Video adapter: I got the Topoint USB-C to VGA/HDMI video adapter as the price of acquiring the new, all-USB-C MacBook Pro, and keep it packed for presentations. I haven’t actually used it yet, so I can’t confirm that it works.

4. USB-C adapters: Something like these Aukey USB-C adapters are essential for any Macbook owner. Keep one on you at all times.

5. VPN: After looking at a number of different privacy sites, I’ve selected NordVPN as the best way to protect myself online — and on the road.

7. USB keychain:Sandisk Dual Drive supports USB-C and old-fashioned USB. You just slide that little button on top to pop out one connector or the other.

8. TV on the go: It drives me crazy when I’m forced to watch live TV like some kind of animal, so I travel with an Amazon Fire Stick that lets me access my Netflix and Amazon Prime Video accounts.

In case it’s not obvious from the list above, I am always on the hunt for my next life-changing gadget, so if there is anything you’d add to this this, please let me know!

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/8-tech-essentials-for-your-next-business-trip/feed0128910http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/8-tech-essentials-for-your-next-business-tripSilicon Valley Needs to Change How It Treats Working Mothershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/eNEm4vFQhGk/silicon-valley-needs-to-change-how-it-treats-working-mothers
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/portfolio/digital-culture/silicon-valley-needs-to-change-how-it-treats-working-mothers#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 05:35:35 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=110618Faced with growing criticism of Silicon Valley’s gender diversity problem, many tech companies have invested in feel-good programs that encourage girls to pursue STEM learning, like Girls Who Code and Iridescent, or to study computer science in college. But it’s only just starting to work on the other side of equation: providing the training opportunities, flexibility, and mid-career on-ramps that make it possible for women to stay in the tech world after having kids.

If you’re introducing your kids to Star Trek, you might be tempted to start with the original series, or with The Next Generation. But our rigorous family testing shows that the original series is just too damn old and slow for kids these days, and TNG suffers from the fact that it doesn’t get good until season 3 — so you either have to suffer through two lousy seasons, skip ahead and miss the setup, or pick and choose the most essential episodes so you fast-forward to season 3. (We used this excellent guide to work our way through the first two seasons.)

But when we started our kids on Star Trek, we started with Voyager. It’s good from the very beginning, it’s pretty accessible, and because it’s not very serialized, you can skip scary or otherwise kid-inappropriate episodes without missing any crucial overall plot development. Between the character of Naomi Wildman and a set of kids who join the cast in the later seasons, there are also quite a few kids for child viewers to relate to.

That still leaves the question of where to start, or which episodes to watch if you’re only going to sample. If you have already watched Voyager yourself, skimming through the short episode summaries on Wikipidea may be all you need to remember which ones to share with the kids.

But be a little cautious, because as we discovered, watching with kids makes you newly alert to scary or disturbing content you may not have thought twice about when you first watch the show. With that warning in mind, here are the episodes our kids (ages 13 and 10) seemed to enjoy the most:

Caretaker (Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2): The setup for the whole series is worth watching, and our kids enjoyed it. You may need to fast-forward through the scene when Voyager gets flung across space (we see some injured and dead people) and also the lab scenes where crew members are subjected to medical tests. While the series doesn’t really depend on watching every episode, it’s pretty helpful to know how the ship got stranded, and why the doctor is a hologram.

Time and Again (Season 1, Episode 4): Members of the crew travel back a day to prevent an explosion on an alien planet. Time travel and causality paradoxes 101.

Deadlock (Season 2, Episode 21): Voyager gets duplicated! Very cool for kids who are into alternate universes (and what kids aren’t?) Spoiler: The ending is a bit sad.

Tuvix (Season 2, Episode 24: Ah, the transporter accident: a Star Trek staple. In this episode, two very different crew members get merged. It’s not an especially good episode but the kids found it fascinating.

Real Life (Season 3, Episode 22): The holographic Doctor creates the perfect holographic family — until B’Elanna tweaks the program to make it more real. It’s a great jumping-off point for a conversation about the distinction between an easy life and a meaningful life — but it does get sad. Spoiler here if you need details.

Distant Origin (Season 3, Episode 23): This is a great episode for dinosaur lovers, because Voyager encounters a species that is distantly related to Earth’s dinosaurs. Don’t worry, they aren’t scary — unless your children are scared by anti-science denialists, like the aliens who refuse to believe in the evolutionary evidence showing their link to Earth.

Living Witness (Season 4, Episode 23: The doctor wakes up in an alien museum that tells the history of Voyager’s impact on the planet — and discovers that history can get the story wrong. It’s a terrific episode to watch and discuss with kids, once they’ve watched at least a handful of episodes (enough to recognize the museum’s inaccuracies).

Worst Case Scenario (Season 3, Episode 25): A fun holodeck episode where Voyager members get to play a holo-novel based on their own crew. It’s only fun if the kids have already seen a few episodes of Voyager.

Random Thoughts (Season 4, Episode 10 ); While visiting another planet, the crew’s half-Klingon member gets put on trial for violent thoughts. It’s an interesting lens on the challenge of emotional self-control, which may resonate for some kids, but it does have some violent imagery.

Latent Image (Season 5, Episode 11 ) : How does a hologram handle PTSD? That’s the premise of this episode, in which the Doctor tries to make sense of his missing memories.

Someone to Watch Over Me (Season 5, Episode 22): Seven of Nine (the recovering Borg) gets lessons in how to be more human. It’s very sweet and relatable, but not very sci-fi. His core trauma isn’t likely to be too traumatic for kids.

Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy (Season 6, Episode 4): When aliens spy on Voyager by tapping into the Doctor’s eyes and ears, they instead get misinformed by the Doctor’s daydreams. Amusing and not at all scary.

Pathfinder (Season 6, Episode 10 ) Once the kids are invested in the idea of Voyager returning home, they’ll love this episode, set primarily in the Alpha Quadrant.

Blink of an Eye (Season 6, Episode 12): This is my favorite Star Trek episode of all time, and it’s one you can watch at any point in your Voyager journey. (We showed it to our kids long before we started on the series in any consistent way.) Voyager gets trapped in the orbit of a planet where time moves faster than it does in the rest of the universe, and the crew gets to watch the planet’s history unfold. Regular appearances by Naomi Wildman make for one more level of kid appeal.

Muse (Season 6, Episode 22): After a shuttle crash on a planet with a pre-warp civilization, B’Elanna becomes the muse to a local poet. Imagine if it turned out that Sophocles had based Oedipus on an alien encounter, and you’ll get the general idea. Super fun, and a nice intro to the complexities of alien contact.

Critical Care (Season 7, Episode 5): The Doctor gets abducted and forced to work in a hospital that distributes medicine based on class status. It’s a great catalyst for conversations about fairness, inequality and healthcare.

Endgame (Season 7, Episodes 25 and 26 ) If your kids get into Voyager at all, resist the urge to skip forward and watch this two-part final episode until you’ve watched the rest of the series (or as much of it as your kids can handle). But I have to mention the finale as a kid-pleaser, because it’s my 10-year-old’s very favorite, and six months after seeing it, he still likes to discuss its temporal paradox.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/parenting/star-trek-voyager-18-episodes-to-watch-with-kids/feed073708http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/parenting/star-trek-voyager-18-episodes-to-watch-with-kids12 ways to use Yelp as a writing and service platformhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/a0Qq8xqcFAA/12-ways-to-use-yelp-as-a-writing-and-service-platform
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/12-ways-to-use-yelp-as-a-writing-and-service-platform#respondTue, 28 Mar 2017 04:23:31 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=73202I have to make a confession. Yes, I have a blog, both here and on Medium. Yes, I write for a living, which means I get to work with awesome editors at a few different outlets. And yes, I’ve been known to write long-winded Facebook updates that cross over the invisible line between update and essay.

But of all the places I write, there’s one where I enjoy reading my own stuff the most: Yelp. Weird though it may sound, my Yelp reviews include some of my very favourite pieces of my own writing.

As you might infer, my Yelp profile isn’t strategic: I’m not trying to grow my following, and I’m not committed to any particular posting frequency. While I enjoy having that little “Elite” icon next to my name, I don’t think I’ve ever attended an Elite event or received any other material benefit from my Yelping.

What I love about Yelp — or at least, about my own writing on Yelp — is how it allows me to tell a story, and at the same time, to know that what I write is likely to be useful to other people. Here are my favorite ways of putting that power to work:

Local activism. Working at a restaurant shouldn’t require women to bare their bodies. A Yelp review was the most direct way to draw attention to the absurd dress code at Glowbal restaurant in Vancouver. And when I love a local business, a Yelp review is the best way to lend a hand: I was eager to drum up business for a neighborhood favorite, Masala Cafe, though sadly, it still closed its doors.

Exacting vengeance. I can’t deny that I sometimes use Yelp to rain down holy hell on a business that has really ticked me off. While I’m sure there’s a special room in hell for people like me, I suspect it will be full of writers I love, because there’s nothing I enjoy reading — or writing — more than a truly vicious review. Two of my personal favorites: this take-down of Connie’s Cook House for ruining Christmas Eve, and this review of sushi served by aliens from another planet.

Holding a grudge. My children refuse to eat Mexican food, which means I only had one experience of the greatest tacos in the history of tacos, or maybe it was the greatest charred peppers in the history of charred peppers. So I made sure to review not only the tacos, but also, my children.

Teaching myself a lesson. I reviewed the Red Lion Hotel at Disneyland in the hope that I would never again forget: you’re not paying for the room, you’re paying for the sleep. I wrote a Fred Meyer review to ensure I would never, every again go into a Fred Meyer. And by Yelping these lessons, I hope they can help other people, too.

In our eagerness to build a social media following or a strategic web presence, it’s easy to lose sight of writing for the pure joy of it?—?or to be of actual, immediate service. But that kind of writing is truly a five-star experience.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/12-ways-to-use-yelp-as-a-writing-and-service-platform/feed073202http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/toolbox/12-ways-to-use-yelp-as-a-writing-and-service-platformVancouver residents get a taste of the futurehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/xkwgBC-TPjI/vancouver-residents-get-a-taste-of-the-future
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/vancouver-residents-get-a-taste-of-the-future#respondMon, 20 Mar 2017 17:56:51 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=88147]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/vancouver-residents-get-a-taste-of-the-future/feed088147http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/vancouver-residents-get-a-taste-of-the-futureHow to create short link stickers for your best contenthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/reIGC6MQpCQ/how-to-create-short-link-stickers-for-your-best-content
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/career-work/how-to-create-short-link-stickers-for-your-best-content#respondTue, 14 Mar 2017 22:22:27 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=71672In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, I share my favorite hacks for getting more out of conferences — including the trick of making stickers that let me add a short link to my business cards.

I love my short link stickers because they give me an immediate way of following up on a conversation. Giving someone a link to something I’ve written that directly relates to our conversation is a lot more compelling than giving them a plain business card. And people seem to get really juiced about the stickers themselves: every time I pull. out my sticker book and start flipping through it for the appropriate link, I hear exclamations of delight.

Since these links and stickers have worked so well for me, I thought I’d share some photos and offer a how-to guide for others who want to follow suit.

Who needs short link stickers?

I created my short link stickers because every conversation I have ultimately turns into tech support, so I constantly found myself writing down the URLs of my favorite blog posts about the sites or services I recommend. But that is just one (weird) use case: anyone who regularly points people to the same few web pages or posts can find these stickers useful.

Here are some other people who might want short link stickers:

Writers and journalists: If you’re a writer or journalist, you may have a few publications or stories you share again and again. Create a short link sticker for each of the publications you write for (e.g. http://alexlov.es/wsj) or for your favorite stories (http://alexlov.es/mentors).

This sticker links to my TedX talk, so it’s great to share with people who are interested in booking me as a speaker.

Sales people: If you have a few web pages, PDFs or resources you like to share with people during or after a meeting, create a short link and sticker for each one. You can even roll up multiple web pages onto a single web page (just create a page with a bunch of links) or create a shareable Dropbox folder so you can provide one link for multiple documents.

Commentators: I do a lot of media interviews, and every journalist always asks how what to call me and how to describe me. Now I just give them a business card with my http://alexlov.es/hername sticker.

Job hunters: Create short links to your LinkedIn profile, a downloadable version of your résumé and examples of your best work. Keep those stickers handy, and if you get asked about specific experiences in an interview, hand over a card with the relevant sticker. Give people links to your best work when you’re sharing cards in other contexts, too.

Health professionals: If you regularly give patients or clients the same pamphlets, or the same links to exercises they need to do, try short link stickers instead. If your patients are anything like me, they’d rather have these resources in digital form, anyhow — they’re harder to lose!

Conference speakers and attendees: As you might gather from my WSJ story, I find stickers incredibly useful at conferences, when I’m meeting lots of people. I made a point of creating alexlov.es/SXSW16 stickers last year, which I used at SXSW to let people know about my session, and I also created lots of stickers that linked to content related to my talk.

I’m sure there are many, many other folks who would find short link stickers useful. If you have ideas about how they can work for you or your profession, I’d love to hear them!

Creating short links

To understand your options for creating short links, you need to know that a short link like bit.ly/shortURLS101 consists of two parts: the domain (bit.ly) and the path (shortURLS101). The domain is how all your short links will begin, so you want one that is nice and short; the path is what you’ll create for each individual short link, and will look different each time.

You have three options for creating your short links:

1. Use a standard web-based URL shortener like bitly. This is the easiest option, and if you use bitly itself, has the advantage of making it immediately obvious that your sticker is a short link. A couple of tips:

Create your short links while logged into an account on your URL shortening service, so that you create a list of all the links you create. You can use these links to track analytics for your short links (i.e. how often they get clicked) over time.

Customize the path for each link so it’s short and memorable. This is essential: a link like http://bit.ly/2nncFhk may be fine when you see it online (and can click on or copy it), but good luck typing it correctly as you read it off a sticker. And creating links with names that relate to the subject matter of your content will help you remember which sticker goes links to which webpage.

Make sure you know whether the service you are using is case sensitive. For example, on bitly, if you create the link bit.ly/shortURLS101 someone else can still create the link bit.ly/shortUrls101, and it will go to a completely different place. But on my own link shortener (alexlov.es), capitalization doesn’t matter: those two links would go to the same place.

If you want to track who is looking at your links, consider creating multiple short links that point to the same destination. For example, you could create one version of your link (and sticker) that you use when you give to prospective customers, and another for general interest; that way you can tell if this is helping you generate sales leads. Just don’t go crazy creating multiple shortcuts to the same URL or you’ll have trouble remembering which link goes where.

2. Get your own custom domain and use it on a commercial service like bitly. Many URL shortening services, including bitly, will allow you to register your own domain (like alexlov.es) so that it replaces their domain when you use their service. You’d still be using bitly, but each link you create will begin with your domain (alexlov.es) instead of theirs (bit.ly).

If you decide to go this route, there are a couple of things to look for in your domain shortening service provider:

Custom namespace. Most URL shortening services make everybody share the same namespace. That means that if someone else has created the short link bit.ly/shortURLS101, you can’t create the link yourna.me/shortURLS101. That’s a drag, because it means you end up with much less flexibility when you’re creating your short links; you’ll get plenty of error messages saying that link or path is already taken. This article from The Next Web recommends ShortSwitch as a service that allows a dedicated namespace, but you’ll want to double-check that whenever and wherever you set up your shortener.

Editable links. Very few link shortening services allow you to edit the destination URL after you create a short link, because that would be a recipe for people sharing links that they think go to one place, only to have them later redirected elsewhere. But I really like having the option to edit where my short links redirect to, in case I have a new and improved piece of content to share — for example, I’ve changed alexlov.es/evernote so that instead of pointing at my very first blog post about Evernote, it now points to a collection of my Evernote posts. Rebrandly seems to be one service that prides itself on allowing you to edit your destination after creating a link.

All the suggestions I make under #1, “Use a standard web-based URL shortener”, also apply here, so please read those tips too.

3. Set up your own URL shortener. This is the approach I use, running the open source YOURLs URL shortening software. I love it, and it’s worked great for me.

I set up YOURLs for myself, on my own server (with some help), but I can’t say it was easy for me. If these instructions are daunting to you, you can look at one of the many web hosts that now offer YOURLs hosting; that’s what I’d do if I were starting from scratch. I’m afraid I don’t have one to recommend, but you can find one via this link to my very favorite short link service, lmgtfy.com.

Note that you will need to register a new domain to use this option or to get a customized version of a commercial link shortening service. Make sure so choose something short, memorable and easy to read, so people won’t make mistakes when transcribing it. I’m extremely fond of my short-linking domain, alexlov.es, which I got by registering a Spanish domain (.es is for Spanish domains, but you don’t have to be in Spain to register one). The only downside is that people don’t necessarily recognize it as a domain, so I have to explain to them that they can just type in my short link as it appears on the sticker.

Most of the tips I offered above under options #1 and #2 apply here, too, so please do take a look.

Making your stickers

Once you have your URL shortener selected, it’s time to make some links — and some stickers. Here’s how:

Create a short link for each URLs you frequently share. And from now on, keep a running list of everything you’d like to be able to share, so you have it handy the next time you order stickers.

An example of a sticker image exported from my template and ready for upload to Moo.

Choose your sticker printer. You can print stickers at home using labels you buy at at an office supply store, but I like having mine printed. It’s a lot easier to keep my stickers looking nice when they are contained in a little sticker book, and I suspect that my sticker book is part of what delights people about my stickering process. I order my sticker books from Moo, and I’ve been very happy with the results.

Design your stickers. Moo provides a template for designing your stickers, but it took some experimentation for me to make that work, and I had to give up on the dream of creating my stickers on the Moo site itself. Instead, I created a Photoshop template (get the PSD file here!) that I use to create each sticker as an image: the background layer has my domain, and then I put each short link on a separate layer, flipping the visibility of each layer on when I want to export a PNG of that sticker. I save all those PNGs in one folder and then upload them to Moo to create my stickers.

Practice stickering your cards. Before you hit the road, figure out where you are going to attach stickers to your card. You’ll want to ensure they adhere properly, and also check that you have a spot to put them where they won’t obscure crucial information. I like to put them on the back of my business cards, where I have a simple headshot.

Using your stickers

Once you have your short link stickers in hand, you’re ready to start wowing people with your stickers — and content. I make a point of carrying my short link sticker book in the same business card wallet I use for my business cards, so it’s always handy when I’m giving someone a card.

I also check my URL shortener periodically to make sure people are actually visiting the links I share. Looking at the top short links I’ve created in the past two years, I can see that a number of my most-clicked links are getting traffic from stickers. (I’ve highlighted the links for which I’ve created stickers, and excluded the top 8 links .) Note that these stats don’t reflect the overall traffic to these web pages, but rather, just the number of times my short link has been used to get there.

Fifty clicks may not seem like a lot, but when you realize that almost all the hits on alexlov.es/2x2s came from people who presumably entered that URL off a sticker, it’s actually an amazing result. People really do hang onto my business cards, it appears — and adding those short links mean they’re taking the time to look at my work.

Short link stickers have become one of my favorite conference and networking hacks, and I hope that you can now see how they can work for you, too. And of course, if you want to share this post, I have a short link for you: alexlov.es/linkstickers

On November 8th—Election Day—I spent six hours in a rented studio in Manhattan, taping a new class for Skillshare. Email Productivity: Work Smarter with Your Inbox is a forty-minute video class made up of bite-sized lessons that show how you can conquer email overload with mail rules so that you spend less time on email, and have more time for the work that matters most.

Watching the class now is like watching a time capsule from a previous, better lifetime?—?one in which the worst thing that could happen on email was missing a message, or getting distracted at the dinner table. The mistake I made, back in that other world, was in thinking of email as a tool that each of us could use as we saw fit.

But now I know that email is something we all have to tackle together. That’s because somewhere along the way, email became our collective id: the repository of our pleas for attention, our flimsiest marketing gimmicks, our furtive love affairs.

Email became the thing we looked at when we first woke up in the morning, and just before we went to sleep at night. As the conduit for our work, our schedules, our ideas and our relationships, email acquired the essence of our culture, and became Us Personified: email became Email.

And now, Email is having its revenge.

Email launched its first assault in a form that will be familiar to anyone who has done battle with corporate email policy. If you’ve ever worked in an organization that forced you to use its crappy mail system instead of your own carefully chosen mail provider, you may relate to Hillary Clinton’s decision to set up her own private server instead of the account provided by the State Department. Or you might sweep that justification aside in favor of the theory that she just wanted to shield her communications from Freedom of Information requests.

In either case, we know what was really at work behind the scenes: Email, that sower of fear. Fed by our contradictory desires for privacy and connection, for discretion and for accountability, Email has grown into a vengeful beast that can destroy the best of us. We have imbued Email with so much power and mystery (what exactly is a private email server, many people wondered) that we are filled with terror at the sight of a woman in charge of her own inbox.

One among us dared to imagine that we could master Email. So Email decided to show us who’s boss.

But raking a candidate over a few mid-election coals was not enough to satisfy Email’s wrath. Four decades of abuse could not be avenged by dragging a single leader through the mud: it required large-scale, mass humiliation. The kind of humiliation you get when tens of thousands of messages are freed from their confinement, and set loose on WikiLeaks.

Sure, Russia played a role, but Vladimir Putin was Email’s bitch. It’s Email that destroyed not only Hillary but the entire DNC leadership, consoling us with little more than a questionable risotto recipe.

Now that Email has delivered the US Presidency to Donald Trump, it is poised to deliver its final blow. In Donald Trump, Email has the ultimate ally: a ruler so feared, and so fearless, that he renders online communication suspect.

No more can we use Email to circulate news, secure in the knowledge that it will be read and believed. No more can we trust our Email providers the way we trust our priests, placing faith in the sanctity of the user-ISP relationship. No more can we burden Email with our secrets, secure in the expectation that our messages will go unread by government eyes.

Some writers have not hesitated to indict the entire newspaper business-or profession-on such charges as deliberate suppression of certain kinds of news, distortion of news actually published, studied unfairness toward certain classes, political organizations and social movements, systematic catering to powerful groups of advertisers, brazen and vicious “faking,” and reckless disregard of decency, proportion and taste for the sake of increased profits.

If you think that quote comes from a recent critic of fake news, think again! That’s from a 1922 article by Victor Yarros, and it’s part of my look at the long tradition of lousy journalism — most notably, the “yellow journalism” phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/63656/feed063656http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/63656How to Use Online Games and Activities to Connect to Grandchildrenhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/Wg1Mcc6qJZM/how-to-use-online-games-and-activities-to-connect-to-grandchildren
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/how-to-use-online-games-and-activities-to-connect-to-grandchildren#respondMon, 28 Nov 2016 05:19:04 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=63655Technology doesn’t have to drive family members apart: it can also bring generations together. My latest post for The Wall Street Journal, featured in today’s Encore Report, spells out how grandparents can embrace online activities to get closer to their grandchildren. For example:

Online games: Games such as “Draw Something” and “Words With Friends” are popular among adults and children. Even children who are barely reading can enjoy the mobile versions of multiplayer games like “Ticket To Ride” and “Carcassonne.” Many have a chat function, and so give you a way of exchanging short messages along with your game play. The latest iPhone messaging app places such games within text messaging, which can be a good way of inserting yourself into grandchildren’s texting habits. You’re much more likely to hear from them regularly if you stay in touch via text rather than email.

]]>http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/how-to-use-online-games-and-activities-to-connect-to-grandchildren/feed063655http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/wsj-clip/how-to-use-online-games-and-activities-to-connect-to-grandchildrenWorried about surveillance under Trump?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/alexandrasamuel/~3/YnuBEGAeh-g/worried-about-surveillance-under-trump
http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/clip/published-in-passcode/worried-about-surveillance-under-trump#respondFri, 18 Nov 2016 03:59:30 +0000http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/?p=63554What do activists, journalists and plain old-fashioned citizens need to know about online privacy in the Trump era? I wanted to ask the smartest people I could find for their advice — and you can read the results in my latest piece for The Christian Science Monitor’s Passcode.

It’s crucial to start thinking in these terms, for reasons I map out in the story:

“Eight years of George W. Bush followed by eight years of Obama have allowed Trump to inherit a powerful surveillance state,” says Eva Galperin, global policy analyst for the digital advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “He is likely to turn that surveillance on American citizens, especially people of color, Muslims, and his political enemies.”

This success story begins yesterday morning, when Peanut showed up at school in his Halloween costume: a Borg cube. For those of you who aren’t Star Trek fans, let me explain that the Borg are a race of terrifying cyborgs. They travel across the galaxy, assimilating other species and declaring that “resistance is futile”. They are emotionless, determined and relentlessly rational. You know, just the kind of cheery creatures any child would embrace.

When his big sister Sweetie decided to dress as a Borg for Halloween, Peanut declared that he would show up as one of the Borg’s cube-shaped ships. OK, he didn’t show up at school in the costume—he didn’t like the feeling of the cardboard box around his neck. But once he got to school he let me pull the hood of his shirt up over his head (thank you, people who make hooded shirts!), which covered his neck enough to make his costume bearable. He wore it for fifteen full minutes before insisting he had to take it Off. Right. Now. Success!

Taking off the costume wasn’t enough to keep Peanut in class for the morning, however. His support worker was home sick for the day, so Peanut declared that he couldn’t even. No support worker meant his whole schedule was thrown off! As soon as his ten minutes of homeroom were up, he retreated to the special ed teacher’s office, where he asked to play on my iPhone. I wouldn’t give him the phone, but I dug into the stash of books I keep in the special ed office, and found the next book in a series he’s recently discovered. He was thrilled, and settled into a chair to read…which meant that I could actually rush to meet a deadline I had all but given up on when our support worker called in sick. I had my work all wrapped up by the time Peanut finished his book. Another success!

At lunch time he put his costume back on so that he could go back into class and lobby his classmates to vote for him in the costume contest. Over the course of the next hour, he took his costume off—and then put it back on—half a dozen times. Each time I fastened him back up, he trotted off to ask someone else for a vote. None of the other kids seemed to be actively campaigning for a costume prize, but his vote requests were perfectly polite and friendly, and apparently well received. Hurray!

After the voting wrapped up Peanut joined in the school Halloween party. I encouraged him to join his class when it was their turn to hear ghost stories, but he didn’t want to go once he found out they would only be listeners, and not storytellers. He also passed on the Halloween arts and crafts. But he spent over an hour in the board game room, playing happily with a couple of classmates, and without any issues over who won or who lost. Yay!

As we approached the time of the costume ceremony, he started watching the clock. “I really want to win the prize for Best Homemade,” he told me. “Or else, Most Creative.”

“What are you going to do if you don’t win?” I asked.

“I’ll shake the hand of the person who wins, and congratulate them, and then I’ll go home and cry.”

It sounded like an impressive plan, but I wasn’t sure he could stick with it. I did a few practice run-throughs, including scenarios in which the winner had a costume that was not nearly as good as his. He seemed ready.

Finally, the Halloween assembly began. Peanut settled into the middle of the crowd, wearing his uncomfortable costume and a big, hopeful smile. His sister (wearing her own Borg costume) sat down next to him and took his hand.

The assembly would present four awards: Best Homemade was the first. When the prize went to another kid, Peanut looked concerned, but kept a tentative smile on his face. Funniest was next—well, that wasn’t a category he’d hoped for. Then the prize for Spookiest: also a long shot. Finally, they announced the winner for Most Creative…and once again, another child took the prize.

As the last winner accepted his prize, I watched Peanut climb out of his own costume. He stood up, a despondent look on his face, and walked quietly out of the assembly.

By the time I caught up with him he had shut himself back into the special ed office; I could hear him crying on the other side of the door. I knocked gently.

“Go away!” he yelled.

“I’m so sorry, buddy,” I called to him. After a few moments, I opened the door.

At the sight of my face, Peanut sobbed even louder. “Why didn’t I win?” he asked, rhetorically. “Why? Why? Why?”

I tried to comfort him with a hug, but he pushed me away. I told him I really understood how disappointed he was. And I told him how impressed I was that he had come downstairs to have a cry.

“Lots of people would want to cry in this situation,” I said.

He asked if he could use my iPhone for a bit while he calmed down.

“It’s a special situation,” I said, after quickly thinking it over. “I’m really impressed with how you’ve handled yourself. So yes, I understand if you need a little iPhone time now.”

The phone break saw him through the twenty minutes to the end of the school day, when we returned home for a couple of hours of down time before trick-or-treating. He mentioned his disappointment over the costume contest a few more times, and it was the first thing he told his dad about at the end of the day, but there wasn’t any more sobbing.

As the evening grew dark we reminded him that it would soon be time to go out trick-or-treating. While his sister tweaked her costume and I dug out some warm layers for us all to wear, Peanut watched TV and showed little interest in getting his costume back on. Then all of a sudden, there he was: ready to go out. His dad grabbed a jacket and followed him out the door; Sweetie and I had to play catch up.

That set the tone for the next hour. Peanut was in the lead, zigzagging back and forth across the street in a way that made sense to no one but him. He was very particular about which houses he wanted to visit, and the rest of us acceded to his determination.

Peanut walked up to each door with his sister, but he approached each door like a Borg. I don’t just mean the greeting that the two kids coordinated: “We are Borg. Resistance is futile. Your candy will be assimilated.” I mean the way he went after the candy: picking through each bowl that was offered, asking for additional candy, rejecting candies that didn’t meet his exacting standards. After his first candy negotiation, we talked to him about the importance of being polite and taking what you are offered, but despite returning to this theme throughout the evening, he continued with his relentless approach to candy assimilation.

And then, abruptly, he was done.

“I just want to go home now and eat my candy,” he declared, “And have a cry about losing the costume contest.”

This is a kid who lives for candy—and he was letting the contest overshadow the biggest candy grab of the year? Time to fix that mood.

“Haven’t you seen how many people love your costumes?” I asked. “Look at how much candy you’re getting. And hey, the photo I took of your costume got more than a hundred likes on Facebook—that’s more likes than there are kids in your school! Are you going to let that contest ruin your fun?”

Then I stopped, and remembered last Halloween.

Last year, this same kid had trouble going to school on the Friday that his school celebrated Halloween. But he didn’t just take breaks to get through the day: he spent all of an hour at school, and then headed home—just like he did most of that year. He wasn’t even at school when the costume prizes were announced…but was just as devastated when his sister came home and told him he hadn’t won. So devastated, in fact, that he had a raging meltdown, and threatened to kill himself. We put him on a 24-hour watch—our standard protocol whenever he threatens to hurt himself—and spent Halloween shadowing him to ensure he wouldn’t give in to his temporary despair.

So yes, he once again had a hard time making it through school on Halloween…but he was at school for the full school day. Yes, he opted out of big portions of the school’s festivities…but he found the parts he could enjoy, and dove right in. Yes, he was still heartbroken about losing the costume contest…but he didn’t go ballistic: he took his heartbreak to a private space, and had a cry.

This is what success looks like for my autistic 10-year-old. It doesn’t look like being a “normal” kid: the kind of kid who might feel a bit disappointed about losing a contest, but lets that disappointment wash away with the joys of trick-or-treating.

Instead, it looks like hard work: the hard work of mastering intense emotional responses just enough to keep them private. It looks like flexibility: the flexibility to participate in a school activity that deviates from the usual schedule, even on a day when his support worker isn’t there. And it looks like bravery: the bravery that allows him to actually experience the disappointment I was asking him not to feel.

That was the success I had before me last night, in the person of a little guy who wanted to bail after 45 minutes of trick-or-treating. All I had to do was embrace what success looked like for him. After all, resistance is futile.